First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

“How are you doing?” Willa said gently.

“I’m so scared it’s hard for me to breathe sometimes.”

“Me too.”

“You don’t act scared. I’m the adult but you’re obviously a lot braver than I am.”

“Did he talk to you at all? The man?”

“Not really. Just told me to come with him. To see you.”

“Did you want to?”

“Of course, honey. I mean… I mean it gets so lonely in that room.”

She eyed the books. Willa followed her gaze. “You want some books to read?”

“I’ve never been much of a reader, I’m afraid.”

Willa picked up several and slid them across to her. “Now would be a good time to start.”

Diane fingered the cover of one. “He’s a very strange kidnapper.”

“Yes he is,” Willa agreed. “But we still need to be afraid of him.”

“Trust me, that won’t be a problem.”

“We almost got away,” said Willa defiantly. “We were like so close.”

“Because of you. I was probably the reason we didn’t get away. I’m not very heroic.”

“I just wanted to get back to my family.”

Diane reached out a hand and gripped the girl’s arm. “Willa, you are very brave, and you just have to keep being brave.”

A sob jumped from her throat. “I’m only twelve. I’m just a kid.”

“I know, sweetie, I know.”

Diane slid her chair around the table and put her arms protectively around Willa.

The girl started shaking and Diane held her tight against her chest. She whispered to her, that things really would be okay. That her family was no doubt fine and that she was definitely going to see them again. Diane knew Willa would never see her mother again, because the man had told her she was dead. But still she had to say it to the stricken little girl.

My little girl.

Outside the door Quarry leaned against the wall of the mine and rubbed an old coin between his fingers. It was a Lady Liberty he was planning on giving to Gabriel. Not for eBay. For college. But Quarry wasn’t really focused on the coin. He was listening to Willa cry her heart out. The wails from the little girl swooped up and down the shafts of the mine, as had decades ago the moans of battered miners, and generations before them the shrieks of Union soldiers dying of diseases that riddled their bodies.

Yet he couldn’t imagine any more painful, heartwrenching sound than what he was hearing now. He slipped the coin back in his pocket.

He’d gotten his affairs in order. People he cared about were provided for. After that, it was out of his hands.

People would condemn him, of course, but so be it. He had endured far worse than the negative opinions of others.

Still, he would be glad when this was over.

It had to be over soon.

None of them could take much more of it.